


Punky rock

by Butterfish



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Enemies, Friendship/Love, Love, M/M, Music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-05
Updated: 2012-11-05
Packaged: 2017-11-18 01:05:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/555179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Butterfish/pseuds/Butterfish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alfred and Arthur have never been friends, but they both love the same thing - music. How will they cope when they're forced to work together on a musical performance?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Punky rock

Arthur and I had nothing in common but our love for music, and somehow that was enough to make us fall for each other. It took us fifteen years to figure out. We grew up in the same village far away from the pulsating sounds of the city and we were both born in the warm summer by mothers who were best friends. They met every Saturday to have coffee in the kitchen and share the latest news, and while they sat smoking and chatting, we were left in the living room to bond. But we didn’t. I took my first step to walk over to Arthur to pull at his nose, and his first word to me was ‘No!’ which he screamed as I tried holding his hand once during a cartoon. We were both hardly past our first birthday at the time, but we’d already developed a deep hate towards the other and it didn’t disappear through time.

In primary school Arthur became the geek and I became the bully. It was about the same time our moms got into a fight and stopped talking to each other, and it didn’t help our relationship. He accused my family of being a bunch of liars. I accused his of being dimwits (not that I knew what that word meant, but I’d heard it on television once). We fought in the school yard, threw papers at each other during class, and made up silly nicknames like Captain Crazy and British Butthead. As we got older, the fighting stopped but we still kept to our own group of friends which never mixed. I was with the cool guys who wore caps and played soccer during breaks, he was with the clever guys who did all their homework and liked reading in their spare time. We had no sympathy for each other. We didn’t even care if we would never see each other again in the future.

I don’t know what Arthur did during the summer when all our friends travelled abroad and we were the only two guys left in the village, both our families a bit too poor to afford anything but a grand barbecue in the garden, but it was around the age of 12 I started playing the guitar. I’d fallen in love with my dad’s old rock records and I tried copying their style and spent many nights shouting home made, hardcore lyrics in my room while ravishing the strings of the old guitar. At the age of 13 I started getting proper lessons in playing and by the time I turned 14, I was rather good at making my own music. I dreamt of becoming a worldwide known star and imagined myself on stage wearing a leather jacket and a t-shirt with the picture of a naked lady on it, so as the school held a talent show for the last year group just before summer vacation, I was the second to sign up for the thing. But I got a shock as I saw who was above me on the list:

1\. Arthur Kirkland: Playing the guitar and singing  
2\. Alfred Jones: Playing the guitar and singing

Needless to say I felt he’d ripped me off, but I think he thought the exact same thing as he heard the news. We’d been separated into two different classes during English lessons that morning but as I bumped into him in the yard, we got into our first fight in five years, sending fists flying at each other, both trying to shout the loudest. “You fucking loser!” I remember saying.

“You copycat!” he shouted back.

“Asshole!”

“Asswipe!”

And both our asses were kicked into the headmaster’s office. He was an old man with a stereotypical view on guys and friendships, and of course his careful glance hadn’t overlooked the troubles we’d had with each other since the beginning of school. We were well known for being like cat and mouse, however both viewing ourself as the cat and the other one as the mouse to be hunted, and sitting there in front of him bleeding and throbbing with pain and grimacing at each other, the man got the idea of the year:

We were allowed to participate in the talent show - but only if we did it _together_.

For two weeks we didn’t speak. I didn’t even show up at school most of the days. Instead I sat at home complaining and whining to my parents about how I certainly didn’t want to do anything together with Arthur. “As if he can even play the guitar,” I said. “Let alone sing! I bet he only listens to classical music. I don’t want to do Mozart. What does that even sound like on a guitar?” But my annoyance got me nowhere because as time passed and the day of the talent show came close, I felt sick inside thinking that I wouldn’t get to go on stage. I wanted to show off. I really did, I just didn’t want to do it together with Arthur, but in the end I pulled myself together and thought that it couldn’t harm to go listen to his music. If anything I could just have a laugh.

So I walked the long way from my home to the other end of the village where he lived. I hadn’t been in that part of town since our moms stopped chatting and it was strange standing in front of their house again, watching the colourful, flowery garden and the newly painted windows which I remembered as being blue. They were now blushing red.

Arthur’s mom was the one who let me in, the relief on her face obvious as she saw my guitar. “He so wants to play,” she said, “but he’s been too worried to go see you.” Surely I could hear him playing; as I walked the stairs to the basement, the sound of an electric guitar being thrown around was obvious, but the sound was nothing like I expected from quiet, geeky Arthur. The music was wild, rough, raw, and as I peeked into his room he started singing in the same moment, his voice hoarse, partly a shout and partly a deep form of singing, but the words like poetry from his lips. And there I stood, Alfred Jones, my jaw dropping as I watched Arthur bounce around in bed with the cord from the guitar swirling around his legs as he kicked the pillows with his boots, the skinny jeans different from his normal, fine trousers, and the tee ripped and abused, surely not the nice, fitted one he normally wore to school. I stood there realising that just like myself, Arthur had a life outside the dusty classroom, and his interest was very different from what I’d expected it to be.

As he saw me he fell off of the bed in surprise and hammered his head to the concrete floor, whining and wriggling in pain, and we had to take a two hour break where he just laid down and chewed on some painkillers. He was sweating and swearing beneath his breath as the dark, red bulge on his head slowly throbbed, and he kept a close eye on me the whole time as if I was going to do something irresponsible. “Are you gonna laugh at me now?” he asked angrily, but I shook my head and placed my guitar in my lap.

“No, you were really cool.”

“Don’t lie.”

“I’m not. It was impressive,” I admitted shyly and peeled at my guitar strap. “I didn’t even know you were into that kind of music.”

“Are you?”

“Well, I prefer rock.”

“I prefer punk,” he said and we nodded thoughtfully. He slowly dragged his hand off of the bulge and sat up in bed. “So,” he said, his green gaze catching mine. “Do you think we can make this work?”

And I felt my heart throb funnily as he stared directly at me and I stuttered: “M-make what work?”

“The show,” Arthur sighed.

“Oh,” I mumbled. “Yeah. Yeah, we can try.”

He smiled wryly at me and reached out to partly unzip the bag I had my guitar in. “Play,” he said, “I wanna see how good you are.”

We spent the next two weeks practising and having more fun than ever. At first we hesitated, overly praising each other for every little thing as we were afraid our friendship was so fragile the slightest thing could break it. But soon we were punching each other’s shoulder and the name calling started, but this time it was all in good spirit and I didn’t do anything but to laugh as Arthur presented me with a shirt that said Captain Crazy. As the talent show came along, we performed on stage with no problems at all; the song was a mix of Arthur’s punky lyrics and the music blended with rocky parts, and although we didn’t win, we both felt like stars by the end of it all.

“I can’t believe we did it!” Arthur grinned afterwards and hugged me tightly, and I embraced him back and swung him around in a circle.

“We rock!” I nodded and we both laughed, and somehow we couldn’t let go again. He kept hugging me and I kept swinging him around until he gasped that he was feeling sick, but as I slowly let go of him, our hands still slipped together and we held tightly onto one another. We were behind stage by the toilets, well hidden next to the dressing screen while people hurried back and forth just a few metres from us, no one noticing what we were doing, and we were just standing, staring at each other, both hoping the other would say something.

“Yeah…” Arthur finally mumbled and smiled a little. “Nice job. Crazy.”

“You too,” I said. “Butthead.” And I squeezed his hand a little before Arthur stepped away from me, finally letting go. My sweaty palm felt a little empty.

“Summer vacation is coming up,” he said and stretched his arms above his head. “Want to spend it making music together?”

“Oh yeah,” I nodded and grabbed my jacket. “That sounds like fun.”

“We make a great pair,” Arthur said and hurriedly added: “On stage.”

“Yeah,” I said weakly, “on stage.” We grinned and I patted his shoulder and he carried my guitar as we headed back towards his place, slowly walking side by side. And we were still very different people and we liked very different things, but we were heading somewhere together anyway, and it felt great.


End file.
